Is Peter Jackson Morphing into Stanley Kubrick?

Kubrick was famous - infamous, famous, tomato, tomahto - for his commitment to detail, so much so that defenders of the "it's all about the Indians" interpretation of The Shining will point to the Calumet baking powder cans in the pantry as evidence for his intentions.

"It's all there, right in front of you!"

That level of devotion/obsession was perhaps best exemplified by his work on the Napoleon movie that never got made - you know, the one that inspired a ten-volume, $3000 book collection on the endeavor:

Aren't those quotes just delicious? "It certainly grew from a boy's dream into something totally passionate..." Compare that with this from Peter Jackson: "Well, The Lord of the Rings [movie] was an idea that came from us. I had read the book when I was 17 and thought, 'Wow, this would make a really cool film. I'd kind of like to see the film.'" There's your boy's dream, and now we've got nine hours of The Hobbit on its way. Something totally passionate, indeed.

And how 'bout this one? "Out of this success came this self-inflicted failure..." The guy is talking about Napoleon, of course, but it's hard not to notice that Kubrick himself went from the success of 2001 to the failure of his Napoleon project. And now here's Jackson, who became a legend for his work on The Lord of the Rings, seemingly getting so lost in the children's-story prequel that he's going to stretch it out over three films.

And not just any three films. Films shot at 48 frames per second; films that will have to be retrofitted to play via 24 frames per second projectors. I love this line from that piece: "High frame rate truly is night-and-day. Even the lay person can see the difference." Even the lay person! You know, the one who ultimately pays for all this wonderful technology. How nice of you to make a machine so advanced that even he can tell the difference.

At this point, I'm just waiting for the news that Jackson is pulling a Cameron and devoting the rest of his career to Hobbit films. Maybe one film per chapter! Yes, only then will we really understand the drama of the trolls and the terror of Mirkwood...